


Jingle Balls

by vilelithe (BroPorrim)



Series: gay holidays [1]
Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alcohol, Christmas, Christmas Eve, Christmas Party, Elf on the Shelf, Fluff, Humor, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, No Smut, Sexual References, Under the table diddling, a lot of those, hopefully?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2015-12-24
Packaged: 2018-05-09 01:14:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5519981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BroPorrim/pseuds/vilelithe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thorin enjoys Christmas at the Bagginses and finds out just how similar Bilbo is to the rest of his relatives.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Gay Happy Feelings

**Author's Note:**

> Merry Christmas! This is written as a follow-up to Alice's Restaurant, but can probably be read independently. I split this up sort of arbitrarily into two chapters, which is why the transition between the two will be awkward. I'm posting the first chapter now, obviously, and the next one tomorrow- Christmas day! This was sparingly edited, so forgive me for any mistakes or awkward sentences and stuff.

_For $100/hour I will come to your holiday party dressed as the Elf on the Shelf and sit in any location you assign me while I stare emptily at your guests for the duration of the event._

The cheesy synthetic _snap_ of Thorin’s phone camera seemed entirely too loud in the train car. Baring his teeth in what he thought was an apologetic smile but was more a rictus smile, he turned the phone to vibrate and sent the screenshot of the Craigslist ad to Bilbo along with the message “^you” and then dropped his phone in his lap.

He leaned his head on the train window, then regretted it when a bump slammed his head against it. He grimaced, then grinned as his phone lit up with Bilbo’s response. “I wish,” it read. “It’s a good idea. I’ve got one that might be fun once you’ve got a few drinks in you.” Thorin blushed, imagining that Bilbo’s idea was a sex thing. A sexy idea. Bilbo had a lot of very good, very sexy ideas and thus far Thorin had enjoyed every last one of them. Images of Christmas themed sex… Things. Flashed through his mind.

He was excited to see Bilbo. And not just because of sex things.

This long distance thing was new to Thorin. This Thing in its entirety was new, if he was being fair, but especially the distance bit. He was more used to the stuff high school romances were made of, all making out behind the bleachers, heavy petting at movies, and very satisfying but one sided blowjobs in his car.

What he had with Bilbo was, in his opinion, more mature. By virtue of being long distance, they were less physical and more emotional. Their connection was forged on more than a mutual distaste of the local college kids and a mutual interest in getting off. With Bilbo, they had a mutual interest in each other _and_ in getting off, and that made all of the difference.

They had long distance phone calls lasting well into the night in which they meandered from heavy to light topics of conversation. Rather than sex as the priority, they were forging a real emotional relationship. (And if they ended their evenings in grainy skype calls involving very few clothes, well, that’s part of maturity, too.)

This was all very satisfying to Thorin. He was _mature_ now. He had a boyfriend. He liked men and was honest about it. He was _mature._

And this would be his first Christmas away from home.

He’d never seen Boston before, because why go to Boston when New York City was closer? Bilbo had taken great offense to that statement, claiming that Boston was a more manageable, more historically rich city. And it smelled better. Thorin could not argue on that point, and he was more than curious about how Bilbo lived, so he agreed to travel to Boston for Christmas. Besides, he wanted to get out of the house more than anything. Dis was only growing larger and more hormonal and she had to pee almost every hour at the 32 minute mark. It was like clockwork.

She was also craving tuna, and there was only so many days of tuna fish sandwiches that Thorin could handle. He’d finally broken when she threw a shoe at him and complained about her swollen feet.

It was seven o’clock when the train finally pulled in at the station. Thorin stretched, trying to chase away the aches and fatigues of travel, and gathered up his things.

The inside of the station was expansive, though the space was filled with impatient commuters. Try though he might, Thorin could find no sign of Bilbo in the throng.

He moved with the crowd more by necessity than choice. Like an unfortunate, wayward kayaker caught in the rush of a river’s rapids, he was bumped and jostled as the hive-minded crowd moved him inexorably towards the exits. Finally, Thorin caught his bearings enough to decide that no, he did not want to leave the building entirely. He feared that, if he was dumped onto the streets alone, he might never find his way in an unfamiliar city without a guide.

So, like a spawning salmon, he fought against the current until he was well outside of it. And, much like salmon so often are, as soon as he broke the surface and took that first, joyful leap, he was snapped up into the jaws of a bear.

This bear just happened to be five foot and have a certain predilection for knits. He wasn’t very hairy. Thorin reminded himself to ask Bilbo if he liked salmon.

As it was, he couldn’t ask. His mouth was too full of Bilbo’s tongue.

Thorin had hardly seen him coming, but in one fell swoop Bilbo had wrested Thorin’s bag from his hand and gotten him to lean over just enough to receive a kiss. A very enthusiastic kiss at that. “Hello, handsome,” Bilbo said cheerily when they parted. “You’re a wreck. Traveling doesn’t suit you.”

Thorin cleared his throat, as though he could dispel the blush that had risen to his face. He took Bilbo’s hand and didn’t take the comment to heart. He’d fallen asleep against the window of the train and was sure that he had drooled. “Hey.”

Bilbo grinned, tugging on Thorin’s hand to draw him through the station. Thorin found that following Bilbo was far more compelling than mindlessly following the flow of the crowd. By then the mass exodus of people fleeing from the station to the streets (or vice versa) had died down from a flood to a trickle. Now no longer inundated, Bilbo and Thorin could walk side by side and actually talk.

Bilbo smiled and said, “T-Station is this way.”

“Great,” Thorin said. This would be easy compared to navigating the New York subway system.. “So… what was that idea of yours?” he asked, biting his lip in a way he thought was pretty sexy. Coy and sexy. Clocking in at 6’2” and just the absolute picture of coy.

“Right,” said Bilbo, grinning wickedly. “Well I happen to have an Elf on the Shelf, and I was thinking that, together, we could move it around during the party without anyone noticing.

“Oh,” Thorin said, the very picture of disappointed.

Bilbo’s brow furrowed in concern. It was very cute. “What? You look disappointed.”

“I thought it was a sexy idea,” Thorin admitted sheepishly.

After a quick snort/laugh combo (a little less cute) Bilbo patted Thorin on the arm, winked, and said, “I have plenty of those, too. Don’t you worry.”

On the street it was dark and cold. The wide beams of headlights, pools of streetlights, and warm glow from storefronts and apartments lit their way. Thorin looked up and saw the skyline towering above them, beautiful and monolithic. Thorin looked down and saw Bilbo, nose tipped with red, staring up at him with overwhelming fondness. “What are you looking at?” Thorin growled good-naturedly. Bilbo laughed.

“You, of course,” he said. “Now follow me. Tell me more about your trip.”

Delving into the Boston subway system was very similar to spelunking into some long-hidden cave system. It was the territory of scruffy, almost talented buskers and white-eyed trains that wormed their way into tunnels and roared past. Businessmen as blind as eyeless fish that swim forgotten rivers charged forth, expelled from crowded trains. As Thorin complained about the ill-mannered toddler that screamed from Princeton Junction to Grand Central Station, Bilbo paid their way into this marvel of nature.

The platform was a distinct plane of transition, the spot between Point A and Point B. Bilbo dug into his pockets and dumped a small handful of change and a crumpled bill into the cello case of a tired looking young man who wasn’t half bad at his instrument. The drawl of his well-loved cello followed them down the platform and onto their train, only dying away when the door shut and the train pulled away.

They jerked and swayed all the way to Bilbo’s apartment. It would be the quintessential bachelor pad if it weren’t so clean, but as it was there was a distinct lack of old take-out boxes. Even the kitchen was pristine. It had an excellent view of the skeletal, domed building across the street and the placid reflecting pool beside it. Shelves upon shelves of books basked in warm lighting in cluttered bookshelves. Absently, Thorin wondered what results a blacklight would produce.

It also had a very comfortable bed that only creaked under great duress, as Thorin found. By the time he and Bilbo collapsed, utterly spent, on the couch, it was 11 pm and Bilbo had one less lamp than he did before. Rather than stir themselves to cook (or worse, eat out) they ordered a pizza, which arrived while Bilbo was humming in the shower.

Thorin, with his still wet hair and missing shirt (he could have sworn it was behind the couch) answered the door. In the hall was a scraggly, overworked college kid laden with warm pizza boxes. Throughout the brief interaction, the kid wouldn’t look away from Thorin’s neck. By the time he was rid of the delivery man, Thorin’s suspicions had grown, and were confirmed in a nearby mirror.

Blossoming bruises mottled his neck and chest, with teeth marks that made it crystal clear what had caused them.

Thorin decided he liked them.

They ate their pizza while tangled around each other on the couch, watching bad movies and cringing. “The party is tomorrow,” said Bilbor in between bites. “It’ll be fun. I have the Elf on the Shelf, which should be fun.”

Thorin nodded and thought back to Thanksgiving. “I’ll be on my best behavior. Scout’s honor.”

“Oh, don’t be silly. It’s not you I’m worried about. My family can be… a bit much. Especially for you—“

“ – now what is that supposed to mean—?“

“ – and especially to the uninitiated. I’ll be sure to introduce you to some of the… safer individuals,” Bilbo assured him. Thorin was not cowed. Surely Bilbo’s family could not be so bad.

“I think I can handle your family,” said Thorin. “You were perfectly capable of handling mine. Yours can’t be much worse.” Privately, he thought that the intensity of all of Bilbo’s relatives combined wouldn’t even hold a candle to Dis’.

“Oh, you sweet summer child,” Bilbo crooned, promptly inciting retaliation in the form of one of the finest bullying techniques out there: the noogie.

Bilbo quickly broke beneath this high torture, screeching “Uncle!” as he flailed in Thorin’s grasp. He managed a blow to Thorin’s stomach that gave a very convincing argument towards letting Bilbo go. “Terrible!” he laughed once he was free. Then he dived at Thorin.

After a brief bout of what might pass for wrestling if you were only familiar with Turkish oil wrestling, they collapsed in a heap on the ground, laughing. They both sported a few new bumps and bruises from falling off of the couch, but those would fade more quickly than their wounded pride or the veritable color pallete that dotted Thorin’s neck.

“We really ought to go to bed,” Bilbo mused, stirring. Thorin hummed in assent but made no motion to move. Sleeping right where he was on the ground was a great deal more tempting than he thought it would be.

“Oh no,” Bilbo said. “Up you get. I am not letting you sleep on the floor. What would my family think if they found out?!”

“That you’re a good host for indulging your guest?” Thorin offered, grinning sheepishly. Bilbo simply stuck out a hand to pull Thorin up. Feeling particularly villainous, Thorin simply used the proffered hand to tug Bilbo back to the ground. Bilbo cursed a blue streak and suggested a few things that Thorin thought impossible or, at the very least, very difficult. And like a clown punching bag, knocking Bilbo down produced the immediate and opposite effect. He sprung back up and stuck his hands on his hips, the picture of sternness.

”We need to go to bed,” he repeated, more red-faced and tousle-haired than before. Thorin grunted and groaned in complaint, stretched his arms out above his head, his back arching with the movement. Bilbo didn’t look amused. “Up you get, you big queer,” he said fondly, toeing Thorin’s side. “Long day tomorrow. Hell, you had a long day _today_.”

Thorin considered being more difficult, as he still thought himself the type to not do anything they didn’t want to. But he _was_ tired. Finally he dragged himself up and followed Bilbo into the bedroom. He fell upon the bed and, almost as soon as his head hit the pillow, he fell asleep.

All too soon, he was shaken awake. “Mmh?” he asked groggily. The room was pre-dawn dark, so it was still night. He should not have been awake.

“I keep eating your hair,” Bilbo said. “Can we do something about that?”

“You wanted to be the big spoon,” Thorin said grumpily. First he got hauled off to bed, now Bilbo didn’t want him to sleep. In the half-light cast by outside streetlamps, Thorin groped for a hair tie.

As he struggled with tying up his hair, Bilbo came back with his rebuttal. “I did, but I didn’t sign up for being strangled to death. It’s like your hair has a life of its own and it’s out for blood.”

“You’re safe now,” Thorin said. “Can I sleep?”

Bilbo sighed. The sheets shifted as he struggled with the blankets, tucking himself up against Thorin’s back as best he could. Laying back down proved to be difficult with Bilbo trying his damndest to wedge himself between Thorin and the mattress. “What are you doing?” Thorin asked after sitting on Bilbo’s thigh for the third time.

“I’m trying to get comfortable, only you’re taking up too much room,” Bilbo hissed. Thorin rolled his eyes and scooted towards the edge. This seemed to solve the problem, but only for a moment, as Bilbo promptly attached himself to Thorin’s back again. “Much better,” he said, pressing a kiss to the back of Thorin’s neck.

That wasn’t the only thing he was pressing, though. No more than three minutes passed before Bilbo put his toes against Thorin’s calves. They were freezing. Thorin tried to kick them away, but Bilbo was relentless. When Thorin could take no more of this, he sat up again. “Can’t you put some socks on?”

“What?” Bilbo asked.

“Socks,” Thorin repeated. There were no bounds to his frustration. All he wanted was to _sleep_. “Seriously, it’s like ice cubes.”

“You didn’t mind _actual_ ice cubes earlier,” Bilbo pointed out.

Thorin flushed, then leaned over the side of the bed to find his discarded clothes. In the pile was the pair of socks he’d worn the day before. “That was different. Here.” The shadow that was Bilbo grumbled as he put the socks on, but at the very least he did it.

Finally, after Bilbo started drooling, Thorin moved to the couch.

Blaring car horns and barking dogs woke him up the next morning. The clock on the microwave informed him that it was just after eleven o’clock. One of Thorin’s legs was hanging off of the edge of the couch and the other was falling asleep, but he didn’t move just yet. From the kitchen came the sounds of frying bacon and soft rapping. Bilbo was not a very good rapper, Thorin was disappointed to learn. This was a new habit that Thorin hadn’t known about, and he was tickled fucking pink to find out about it.

Rather than stand, Thorin let himself slip off the couch with a _thud_. The sounds of rapping—it certainly wasn’t freestyle, but he couldn’t identify the song—stopped. Bilbo cursed, an odd sound among the cacophony of kitchen noises: the hum of the fridge, the crackle of the bacon, the staccato of a whisk against a glass bowl.

“Breakfast?” Thorin asked hopefully as he entered the kitchen. “Let me help.” Bilbo looked him up and down, as though trying to determine through sight alone whether Thorin would burn down his kitchen. “I’m capable of making—what are those, pancakes?—I can make pancakes with moderate success. I can also do shapes. It’s all impressionist art or minimalist Mickey Mouses, though.”

“Moderate success sounds good to me,” said Bilbo. They traded spots, Bilbo bustling around the kitchen as he gathered plates and cups and cutlery. “How’d you sleep?”

“Minus the interruptions? Pretty good. You have a nice couch,” Thorin said. Then he kicked himself internally, because ‘you have a nice couch’ is not the kind of suave morning-after talk he had been aiming for. “Sorry about all of that bullshit, though,” Thorin said stiffly.

“It was as much you as me,” Bilbo said. “I didn’t realize you’d moved to the couch until I woke up. So really, I’m sorry.”

“No, I’m just not used to sharing a bed,” Thorin said.

”I say we forget about it. All in favor?”

“Aye,” said Thorin as he sprayed a pan with Pam and set it on the stovetop. “Didn’t like all of the cars, though. I forgot how much cities suck.”

“You get used to it,” Bilbo said as he played chicken with the pan of bacon. It spit and crackled, and then he would dart in to flip a piece of over. Rinse, repeat. It was entertaining to watch, and Thorin smiled fondly. “Becomes white noise pretty quickly. Though I can understand why you might not like it here at first.”

“And why is that?” Thorin asked.

“Well, it’s very crowded. Lots of people, you know. And people have a tendency of staring, especially at very tall, very handsome men like yourself,” Bilbo said, tapping Thorin’s chest with the handle end of his fork before diving back in to prod a piece of frying bacon. “And you’re not particularly fond of too much attention—particularly positive attention—being the introvert that you are.”

“Hold on, are you psychoanalyzing me?” Thorin asked.

Though he flushed, Bilbo denied it. “Of course not!”

“Of course not,” Thorin muttered as he poured the first batch of pancake batter onto the pan. It spread in a manner not dissimilar to the process in which an amoeba moves, giving the impression of an inkblot or a cloud. One might be able to find shapes in it, if they looked. “Hey, does this look like something to you?”

Bilbo leaned over and squinted at the growing pancake. “It looks a bit like a… flower, almost. Or a butterfly.”

Thorin grinned. “Hm… so that makes you an optimist, I think. You think that the journey is more important than the destination, and—“

Bilbo snorted. “Are you psychoanalyzing _me?_ ”

“Of course not,” said Thorin, smiling innocently.

“I should hope not. We don’t really use the inkblots anymore. Or at least, I don’t.”

“The disappointments just keep coming,” teased Thorin. Very suddenly he realized how downright _domestic_ this was and how much he liked it. It made him feel very gay feelings in his heart. For some time, they continued to orbit each other in the kitchen, Bilbo occasionally rubbing against Thorin in a manner that did not seem entirely accidental. His libido was too strong for Thorin.

They ate on plain white plates in the sun-washed living room, then cleaned both themselves and the kitchen. While Thorin showered, Bilbo cooked. Apparently every Baggins family event was a pot luck and to arrive without a contribution was a sin. A mark of scandal was awarded to any would-be freeloaders, one that was difficult to erase. To hear Bilbo tell it, such a grievous mistake was not unlike theft to the Baggins. Or, at least, getting caught in the act. Of theft, obviously.

The sky overhead was a looming slab of slate when they left that afternoon. At any moment Thorin expected it to snow, but it held out. Rather than risk the cold, he and Bilbo linked arms and shoved their hands in their pockets. Each of them was laden with pies, Bilbo’s specialty, in canvas Whole Foods bags. They smelled delicious, and Thorin found himself looking forward to this party, if only for the chance to eat these pies.

Once again they subjected themselves to the mercy of the MBTA, but Thorin found that it was not so bad this time. There was a general hum of excitement, people going to meet loved ones or family. The energy of Christmas Eve snowballed, a tangible being in the car, bouncing from person to person and growing greater with each transmission. He and Bilbo stood close, and no one seemed to mind much when they kissed once or twice.

Finally, they arrived at the end of their line. “NOW APPROACHING: WONDERLAND,” droned an automated recording. It cautioned them to take all of their things with them as they left the train.

Snow was falling. It gathered in their hair and on their shoulders as they waited, hand in hand, for one of Bilbo’s relatives to come pick them up. In the meantime, Bilbo began priming Thorin on the intricacies of his family. “Some of them are very nosey,” Bilbo cautioned. “Most of them mean well, though. If you look uncomfortable enough they’ll probably pick up on it and leave you be. Some of them won’t. Also, some of my older relatives have very old fashioned views. They enjoy Fox News and the like. If you ever get caught by one of them, look helpless for long enough and you’ll be saved. Most likely.”

Bilbo prattled on until their ride arrived at last. It was a BMW that spoke of considerable wealth but tried not to be too overt. It was sleek and black and shining, almost free of dirt. Around the tires dirty slush had kicked up a fine layer of dirt. _Good_ , Thorin thought, distrusting any car that was too clean. Nevermind that he came from the land of trust funds and clean cars.

Before Thorin could register what was happening, Bilbo jerked forward, thereby pulling Thorin forward by their attached hands. “Bingo!” Bilbo cried. The window rolled down and the driver, a graying, portly man with the same nose as Bilbo leaned over.

“Oh, Bilbo my boy. Good to see you’re looking well,” he said. “And this is the boy?”

“Hardly a _boy_ ,” Bilbo replied in this giddy voice that made Thorin feel a bit self-conscious. And flattered. That was right. He wasn’t a _boy._

Within moments Bilbo had his pies placed carefully in the back seat. For a moment Thorin wondered whether they’d have an awkward bit of indecision about who sat where, but he was spared when Bilbo opened the door to the passenger side seat. “Hope you don’t mind?” he said over his shoulder. “Thought you’d be more comfortable back there.”

The back seat was spacious, and because Bilbo pulled his seat forward, there was plenty of room for Thorin’s legs. “Thorin, this is my Uncle Bingo. Bingo, Thorin,” Bilbo said by way of introducing the two. Thorin replied with stiff but polite pleasantries. Bingo—which _had_ to be a nickname—replied in kind, though he sounded far more cheerful about it and turned in his seat to shake Thorin’s hand.

As they drove, urban decay gave way to urban sprawl, which soon turned into orderly rows of white picket fence houses with pristine, snow covered lawns. As the houses grew larger, the streets grew more complicated, a web of Paradise Roads and Pleasant Streets. Bilbo and Bingo chatted all the while while Thorin watched it all pass.


	2. Elf, The 2003 Movie Starring Will Ferrell

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> merry christmas motherfukers im drunk

Finally they slowed and parked in the driveway of a sprawling, three-story house perched in the middle of what was probably a well-groomed lawn in the spring and summertime. Now it was covered in a layer of undisturbed snow. Light spilled from every window into the twilight gloom. Through the windows Thorin could see a brilliant Christmas tree and crowded rooms filled with brightly dressed people. Thorin scooped up the bags with the pies, content with being given a task, even if it was given to him by himself. Bilbo hopped out of the car, and Thorin carefully extricated himself a moment later.

Bilbo noticed the bags in Thorin’s hands already and grinned, leaning up to kiss him on the cheek. “You’re a doll. You don’t mind carrying them?”

“Not at all,” Thorin replied, pleased with the praise. Hell fucking yes. “What should I do with them?”

“Go in the side door,” Bilbo said, pointing out a storm door set into the side of the house. “I’ve got to bring Uncle Bingo in through the front. He’s got a bad back and the path is icy.”

Thorin nodded. Now he was a man on a mission. He watched Bilbo and Bingo (if that was his real name) make their slow and steady way down the path to the front door. Though he was remiss to do so without a more permanent social crutch, Thorin delved through the deepening snow and into the storm door. Quite literally. His hand slipped on the latch and he slammed his forehead into the glass. Fortunately, there seemed to be no one nearby to catch him, and the next time he went _through_ the door.

This lead to an expansive, stainless-steel and granite kitchen. “Boots off!” piped a voice from somewhere within. It was a sweet, flute-like voice, yet Thorin knew better than to underestimate the order. Flutes were, after all, very good bludgeoning weapons in a pinch. He toed off his boots and left them by the door where, like a herd of cattle grazing in a field, other shoes mixed and mingled.

The kitchen’s sole occupant was a young woman with mousey brown hair. It fell in neat curls from the haphazard bun set high on her head. She wore a festive sweater over the swell of her stomach. Comparing her to Dis, Thorin decided the woman was about five months pregnant. She turned to face him from where she had been arranging cheeses on a wooden slab and smiled. “Oh, you must be Bilbo’s boyfriend! Please, come in,” she said. Then she offered her hand. “I’m Primula. Baggins. Bilbo’s cousin, I think. It’s a very big family, and I’ve only just married into it.” Thorin shook her hand and looked around helplessly.

“Nice to meet you,” he said. The words plummeted towards the edge of the human register. His throat felt thick with disuse, but that was probably just nerves. She smiled.

“Listen to you! What a voice, wow. Thorin, right?”

“Yeah,” he replied awkwardly. Then, because his mind seemed to have lost control over his mouth, he said, “how far along are you?”

She gave him a very long, scrutinizing look, then took the pies from his hands. “Five months, give or take.” She very deftly exchanged the bags for a flute of champagne, which she thrust into his hands. “You’re a bit nervous, aren’t you? This ought to help. And trust me, you’ll need it. They’re a lot, but if you can handle Bilbo at his worst, you can handle any of them.”

“Thanks,” he said, giving the champagne a good long look before taking a sip. “Sorry, I’m usually a bit more… graceful than that.”

She smiled politely. “Not to worry. I’m sure Bilbo’s been going on and on about how to behave. You’ll be just fine. Just don’t ask anyone else if they’re pregnant. More likely than not they’ll tell you right away, and a lot of them are prone to, y’know—“ she puffed out her cheeks and held her arms out around her stomach. Then she dug around in the bags and pulled out a pie. “Oh! Oh my god, he makes the best pies.” She began to unload them onto the counter, but it was a slow process with the bulk of her stomach in the way. Thorin stepped to her side and helped. “What a gentleman,” she said flatly, though not unkindly. “Though that’s what you all are in the South, right?”

“I’m from New Jersey,” Thorin replied. “That’s not really the South.”

“No,” said Primula, voice laden with meaning. “You’re from the _South_. Everyone knows that New Jersey is the South.” She winked, and before Thorin could recover, he was holding the wooden cheese plate. “Would you mind bringing this out into the living room? If you can make it across the whole thing, there’s a table at the other side. If not, it’ll be empty by the time you get there. Either way works.”

“Yeah, sure,” Thorin said. The way she spoke suggested a gravity to this task that Thorin wasn’t sure he was prepared for. Still, he was a _gentleman_ , as she said. And if he couldn’t handle this, then what did that say?

“Thank you!” she trilled.

Armed with his champagne as his sword and the cheese plate as his shield, Thorin delved into the living room. Some heads swiveled the moment he stepped into the room, while others were so absorbed in their conversations that the house could have collapsed and they wouldn’t have noticed. Thorin suddenly felt as though his sweater was too small and too warm.

The room was large, made larger by the vaulted ceiling. A sectional couch housed several chattering old women, while the two armchairs housed a dozing cat and an old man who was probably sleeping. Much of the room was taken up by a large Christmas tree bedecked in lights and ornaments. The whole room felt lived-in and comfortable, helped along by the crackling fire in the hearth and the drifting Christmas music. A low hum of conversation—interspersed by laughter or cries of surprise or delight—permeated the entire house. Thorin was the tallest person there, he noted as he carefully edged around the armchairs. Many of the room’s occupants bore some resemblance to Bilbo. Here Thorin saw Bilbo’s nose, there his hair, there his eyes.

Just as he was about to reach his goal—a table groaning under an impressive display of snacks—he was intercepted. A small yet very imposing woman with dark brown hair and a severe frown stepped up beside him like he had done something very wrong. “You must be the _boyfriend_ ,” she said, spitting the word like it was venom. Thorin nodded, then carefully dodged around her so he could set his burden upon the table. “You’re very… big,” she concluded. The statement was full of meaning, but Thorin could not puzzle out just what that meaning was.

“I suppose I am,” he replied stiffly, now uncomfortably aware of himself. “I’m Thorin. I don’t think I caught your name.”

“I am—“

“Lobelia Sackville-Baggins,” hissed Bilbo, appearing seemingly out of nowhere. “Thank you for finding Thorin for me. Now, if you wouldn’t mind, you she-devil, we have to make the rounds.”

Thorin was shocked to hear Bilbo speak like that to anyone, and watched as she inflated with pure rage. “Just stay away from my Lotho, you hear?” she shrilled and stomped away from them.

“Holy fuck,” Thorin said. “What was that?”

“ _That_ was Lobelia Sackville-Baggins, by far the worst member of my family. Raised quite a fuss when I said I’d be bringing you,” he sniffed. “Thought we would corrupt the youth. She can’t do anything about Uncle Polo and his Fortinbras, but she’s my age and so she thinks she ought to have a say. I hope you weren’t subjected to her presence for very long.”

“Not at all,” Thorin said, still trying to recover from the experience. That seemed to have been the equivalent of Bilbo cursing someone out, at least among his family.

“Well?” Bilbo asked, rocking on his heels. They drifted away from the snack table, pausing behind the chair containing the (probably) sleeping old man. Thorin noticed the conspicuous absence of the Elf on the Shelf. “Who have you met so far?”

“Just her and Primula,” Thorin said. “I liked her. Not Lobelia, obviously. But Primula.”

“You’ve met Prim?” Bilbo exclaimed. Though he seemed cheerful, something about it seemed forced. “Oh, excellent. I’m glad you met her, she’s an absolute sweetheart. Was she in the kitchen? I have some… things to discuss with her. I think I may see if she has a vacant bedroom, I don’t want anyone to have to drive us back in this weather.”

“Yeah, kitchen,” Thorin said. Bilbo turned on his heel to leave, but Thorin caught him with a gentle hand on his forearm. “Hold on. Are you alright?”

“Of course!” Bilbo replied. “I mean, it’s always a bit much. Family. You know.” Thorin gave him an imploring look and Bilbo sagged. “Oh, alright. It’s only a bit difficult, what with this being the first real Christmas without them. But I’m fine, really. It’ll pass. I’m just… missing them a bit, you know?”

“Let me know if it gets to be too much,” Thorin said. “We can go for a walk or something. You can show me the neighborhood, we can get out. Might be nice.”

Bilbo smiled sadly. “I’ll keep it in mind, you giant sap,” he said, surging up onto his tiptoes to peck Thorin on the lips. “Here, sit with my grandfather—Mr. Baggins, if he wakes up—no one should bother you here. You can move the cat and take the seat by the fire.” Bilbo paused, sobered, then pressed a second kiss to Thorin’s lips. “You really are good. Thank you.”

“You’d do the same for me,” Thorin said. “And besides, it’s Christmas. Now go get us somewhere to sleep.”

He watched Bilbo retreat with fondness, then made his way to the almost free armchair. Bilbo’s (probably) sleeping grandfather did not move when Thorin lifted the cat carefully and took its place on the chair. Rather than kick it off entirely, he set the white mound of fur back onto his lap. It looked very disgruntled for a moment before settling down on Thorin’s lap. It very firmly attached itself there by digging its claws into his pants, but he found that so long as he didn’t move, it wouldn’t hurt.

Absently, he stroked the cat, feeling very much like a movie villain. He sipped his champagne and examined the Christmas decoration on the end table between the two armchairs. It was a set of red and green painted wooden blocks that spelled out “MERRY CHRISTMAS.” Seeing the potential in this, he drained his champagne and rearranged the blocks to spell “MERRY SHITSCRAM.”

This was the highest form of comedy.

His chuckles were joined in concert by cackling like two pieces of bamboo clattering against each other in the wind. Thorin looked over to see that Bilbo’s probably sleeping grandfather was definitely not sleeping anymore. “Very funny,” the old man said. He peered at the blocks for a moment, then ponderously rearranged them to spell ‘RAT RICE.’ “You know, like rat poop? It looks a bit like rice. Not as good, I’ll admit, but you did take the best one.” He cracked a toothy smile. “You’re Bilbo’s…” he struggled for a word for a moment, then settled on, “partner.”

“Yes, sir,” Thorin said. The old man laughed.

“Sir! That’s new. I like it. But I’ll take Mungo instead, if it pleases you,” he said.

“Mungo,” Thorin repeatedly. “It’s good to meet you. I’ve heard about you from Bilbo.”

“Certainly no more than _I_ have heard about _you_ ,” he replied, grinning toothily. “And I have heard a great deal about you. My grandson likes you quite a bit.”

Though Thorin knew this already, he blushed. It was different hearing it from someone else rather than Bilbo. Especially someone who Bilbo respected so much. “Thanks, me too. I mean, yes. I like him a lot.”

“You’re good to him, too. I heard you, just now. Very good of you. He took it hard, losing Drogo and Bella,” Mungo said, smiling sadly. Thorin remembered that Bilbo was not the only one who had been affected by their deaths. Bilbo had lost his parents, Mungo had lost a son.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Thorin said.

“Oh, it’s been a year,” Mungo said. He did something similar to what Bilbo could do, pushing away whatever he might have been feeling under a mask of cordiality. “Come, help me up. I’d like to show you something.”

It was a request not unlike one he was used to from his own grandfather. Once again he lifted the cat and placed it back down again. Affronted, the cat leapt off of the chair and sauntered off to find somewhere it wouldn’t be disturbed. Thorin left his champagne flute on the table and quickly rearranged the blocks back to the correct order. “Leave it as shitscram,” Mungo urged. Thorin obliged. He thought he knew where some of Bilbo’s mischief came from and imagined a much younger Bilbo teaming up with his grandfather to bring hell down upon anyone who crossed their paths.

He helped Mungo up, half-guiding and half-lifting him. While leaning on Thorin’s arm, the old man shambled through the house. They passed through a dining hall, where a gaggle of friendly looking teenagers sat laughing in half-shadow by the window. Through sitting rooms and studies they went, while Bilbo’s family bent their heads and whispered. Not unkindly, he hoped.

(Thorin saw the Elf on the Shelf hanging upside down from a rafter, it’s weird little hands brushing people’s heads as they walked underneath. He took it down and stuffed it, head first, into his pocket.)

Finally they came to a quiet study at the side of the house. The floor was a dark, comfortable wood and a fire crackled happily in the hearth. There was an old wooden workbench against the wall, well-loved. It was here that Mungo lead Thorin. He placed his feet very purposefully, and Thorin realized that there was a pair of foot-shaped indents worn into the wood of the floor. “This is where I used to work, back when I could,” he said fondly. With one hand on the table to support himself, Mungo bent over and rifled through a drawer. Finally he found what he wanted and withdrew a slim wooden box. “Go on,” he urged, “open it. I want you to have it.”

“You don’t have to,” Thorin said as he flipped open the lid. Inside was a set of well-loved wood carving tools.

“No, but I want to,” Mungo said. “You’re more likely to use them than anyone else here. And you’re a welder. A good, sturdy job. Needs a steady hand. You might just be good at this. So take them! I won’t hear you say no.”

Thorin considered protesting once more before accepting the gift, but instead nodded, shutting the lid on the box and tucking it under his arm. He led Mungo back to the armchair he had occupied and eased him into it just as Bilbo reappeared. “Thorin! There you are,” Bilbo said. “I was worried I had lost you for good this time. I see you met my grandfather.” Once Thorin had Mungo settled into the chair, Bilbo hugged him tightly. “You look well.”

“I look old,” Mungo said, patting Bilbo’s back. “I like this one. I gave him a set of woodcarving tools, make sure he learns.”

“That was very kind of you,” said Bilbo, smiling. “Trust me, I’ll hold him to it. I have to show Thorin where our room is, now. We’ll catch up later, I promise.” They walked away, Bilbo pulling the limp Elf out of Thorin’s pocket.

“I thought we could put it in the fridge,” Thorin explained.

“Perfect!” Bilbo exclaimed, bolting into the kitchen, then returning empty handed. He then took Thorin by the hand and led him up the first, then second flight of stairs on the third floor. “I was thinking about what you said earlier. About the walk?”

“Yes?”

“I’ve decided that that is a tempting idea, and I may still take you up on it. But I have a different idea,” he said, opening the door to their assigned bedroom. His voice dropped to what he probably thought was a sultry purr, “let me show you.”

Twenty minutes later, a little rumpled but no worse for the wear, they joined the party again. Thorin’s first order of business was to find himself another glass of champagne and then, when that was gone, another. If it was free alcohol, he was going to take advantage.

Soon half an hour had passed and Thorin realized three things. One: he was a little bit tipsy. Two: he had lost Bilbo. Three: everyone knew what they had done.

The first was not so much of a problem. He was pleasantly drunk, his thoughts taking on an effervescent quality not unlike that of his champagne (which was excellent, he had decided.) Sure, his head was a bit heavy, and he was prone to stumbling a bit here or there, but he felt _good_. He was very drunk.

The second of these things was absolutely a problem. Losing Bilbo once again meant that Thorin had to fend for himself. Thus far that had meant uncomfortable conversations in which Thorin answered question after question over and over again. Each well-meaning interlocutor was friendly, at least at face value. But they, like Bilbo, had a tendency to push boundaries. If one more of them asked, in simpering tones, when his sister was getting married, he did not think he could be held accountable for his actions.

He found the Elf on the Shelf in the bathroom, placed delicately with its vapid little eyes staring right out from the bathroom cabinet. Thorin snorted and carefully extricated it, shoving it under his sweater while he washed his hands. He then went and placed it inside the piano overtop the strings. All night partygoers had been playing, and the elf would soon be noticed.

Before he could settle in to wait for the fruit of his labors, he could hear a clanging and calls of “dinner is done!” Thorin joined the migration of people heading to dinner, a round, balding man attaching himself to Thorin’s side until they arrived at the table.

Dinner proved to be a noisy affair. By now Thorin expected no less, but he had underestimated just what a disaster packing at least twenty of Bilbo’s family members into one dining room would be. Most, if not all, were at some various stage of inebriation. One had been left to snore on a couch and two more were unaccounted for.

Bilbo had ensured that they would sit in good company. To Thorin’s right, Prim chatted happily with her husband. To his left sat Bilbo serving as a buffer between Thorin and the rest of his family. Under the table, Bilbo was squeezing Thorin’s knee in a manner that was very distracting. They ate family style, passing around plates and platters. There was a great deal of food, and if Primula was as good a source as she claimed to be, there was still more in the kitchen.

“I think that _someone_ is hogging that spiral ham,” Bilbo said very loudly, staring purposefully at a very red-faced Bingo, who quickly passed the platter along. “Perhaps there will be some left for us. I think they made four or five hams this year?” 

“That we did! Four of ‘em. Fitting them in the oven was like playing tetris with raw meat.” Prim said. Thorin made an impressed sound, more interested in shoveling some of the ham onto his plate and contemplating the possible double-entendre. Bilbo’s hand slid slowly, slowly from Thorin’s knee up along his thigh. “Save some for me, big guy. You didn’t get enough meat earlier?”

Bilbo made a very undignified noise while Thorin very resolutely contemplated the table cloth. “Oh, no one heard except for Aunt Linda, and she could do with a little shaking up anyway,” she said. “Now, four hams. That’s one thing. But _last_ year, some of the Tooks out of Connecticut and Rhode Island came, too. How many geese did you make?”

Bilbo, who had been halfway through chewing a mouthful, swallowed and said, “oh, it had to be six. I had to use the neighbor’s ovens, too.”

“How many family members do you _have_?” Thorin asked, his voice climbing his pitch as Bilbo’s hand slid farther up his leg.

“Too many, if you ask me,” Bilbo said. “Oh, we have the Tooks and Bagginses out in California. I think we have a few shoots in the Brandybucks, too. And the Hornblowers might as well be Bagginses themselves.” He took another bite, chewed, and swallowed. “Prim, this is good. I mean, I can think of a few improvements—“

“—of course you can, it’s always been _your_ job—“

“— _but_ really, this is the best main dish we’ve had since I lost goose cooking privileges,” Bilbo concluded.

“How does anyone lose goose cooking privileges?” Thorin asked, imagining a pressure cooker launching half-cooked geese through windows. When Bilbo began drawing circles on the inside of Thorin’s thigh with his thumb, he felt much the same. He, too, was a pressure cooker launching half-cooked geese through the window.

“Goose shibari,” laughed Prim.

Bilbo squeezed Thorin’s thigh, not unpleasantly, though Thorin wished he’d get on with it before they got caught. “Only if you ask Lobelia. It’s slander! Everyone knows that that is a perfectly acceptable way to—oh never mind. It was the little lettuce thong that got me in trouble, and only because I forgot to remove it!”

Prim looked from Thorin’s increasingly red face to Bilbo, who did look very guilty. “Hand check!” she ejaculated (pfft), pointing a finger at them in accusation. Thorin immediately held his hands up in plain view. Bilbo attempted to do the same, but smacked his otherwise occupied hand on the table as he went.

“Fuck!” he hissed, grabbing at his hand.

“Busted,” groaned Thorin, mortified _and_ stuck with a boner.

Prim frowned. It was the kind of frown that was not angry. Just disappointed. “At the _table?_ Honestly, you two.”

“Well, can I at least finish?” Enduring this meal _and_ blue balls was most certainly not a thing that was going to happen, but like fuck he was doing the walk of boner shame in front of all of his boyfriend’s relatives.

“Not at the table!” she hissed, groaning in frustration. “Go to the wine cellar or something. Get another bottle of, I don’t know…” she searched the table and found nothing within reach, but Bilbo plucked up a nearly empty bottle of red wine, emptied it in Thorin’s glass, and handed it to him.

“It seems we’re out of the merlot,” Bilbo said loudly, a picture of innocence. Thorin drained the glass quickly. “Would you be a dear and get another bottle?”

“I don’t know…” Thorin said purposefully. Bilbo got him into this trouble—well, it takes two to tango, but Bilbo was getting him out of it, too. At least if Thorin got his way. “I think I’ll _need your help_.”

“You can’t do this on your own?” Bilbo asked.

Thorin shrugged. “I could,” he said, trailing a hand up Bilbo’s inseam. “But I don’t _want_ to. There’s a difference.”

“Oh, fine, jackass,” Bilbo muttered playfully. “At least some of us have self-control.”

“You call touching all up on my dick self-control?” whispered Thorin, standing and strategically carrying the empty wine bottle over his crotch.

“Just go be gay somewhere else for a bit, okay?” Prim whined, and with that Thorin did his best to appear small as he edged out of the room and towards the kitchen. It’s a maze of a house, but by now Thorin almost knew where he was going.

“The wine cellar is down here, just so you know,” Bilbo said, opening a very well hidden door just outside of the kitchen.

“You have a wine cellar,” Thorin marveled. “Whose house is this again?”

“Uncle Bingo’s,” said Bilbo as they descended the stairs. It was a fair bit cooler down there, where everything had a fine layer of dust and smelled faintly of mildew. It was little more than a series of shelves set up in a bare basement with rough concrete walls and rough concrete floors. The shelves were stocked full as far as Thorin could tell, only one was left marginally empty and even that was nearly halfway filled.

Bilbo perused the selection and picked a bottle, settling it carefully on the steps up. Then he turned with his hands on his hips and grinned. “Now, shall we pick up where we left off?”

* * *

One blowjob and one awkward stain later they returned to dinner, which progressed peacefully until, finally, it was over.

That did not, however, mean that the night was over. Not at all, it would seem.

After dinner, Bilbo led Thorin back to the room Mungo had brought him to. It was now a bit more crowded and the Elf on the Shelf was sitting on the mantle clutching and empty wine glass. More importantly, a piano sat in one corner beside a shelf of books of sheet music. Other instrument cases and music stands littered the room in organized chaos, propped up against the couch and armchairs or tucked away in safe places.

For a while, Bilbo and Thorin sat and watched Bingo settle down and work through a number of songs, starting with a handful of classics before giving up the piano to a pair of teenage girls. “Poppy and Daisy,” Bilbo explained. “They’re cousins, somehow. I know they’re related.” The girls played a handful of duets, stumbling over notes and laughing at their own mistakes. The room wasn’t all that full, and they didn’t have much of an audience, so there was little pressure to perform well. After they finished their fourth song (an encore demanded by Poppy’s mother) they ran off to join the rest of their cousins, and Bingo took the piano bench again.

“Liven things up a bit, Uncle,” Bilbo said. “It’s Christmas!”

Bingo grinned and obliged. After a few first skittering notes of a warmup, Bingo launched into some wild ragtime number. Bilbo laughed, flinging his legs over Thorin’s lap before Thorin stood, scooping him up and depositing him on his feet. “Do you dance?”

“Not really, no,” said Bilbo. “What, do you?”

“No,” said Thorin, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t try. He was feeling very drunk and very romantic and he wanted to slow dance to a drunk man’s rag time.

And that he did. Or at least he attempted it. After an attempt that would not even shame a middle-schooler at their first dance, Bilbo dragged him back to the couch. “You’re drunk,” Bilbo pointed out when Thorin started complaining. “It’s the thought that counts. We can take waltz lessons or something.”

“Who’ll lead?” Thorin asked. Bilbo dug around in his pocket until he exhumed a quarter from its deepest depths.

“Flip a coin?” Bilbo suggested. Thorin nodded. “I call tails.” The coin launched into the air with a metallic chime.

“Heads it is,” slurred Thorin. He gently pushed Bilbo out of the way so that he could catch the coin. He slapped it onto its palm, where it sat heads up. “Hell yeah.”

“You’ll forget by morning,” Bilbo said. Thorin nodded in agreement, murmuring happily when Bilbo leaned against his side and took his hand. Bingo played madly on, clearly enjoying himself. “You know, I’m quite fond of you.”

“I like you too,” Thorin replied, nuzzling into Bilbo’s hair for a moment. “Do you play any of these? Instruments, I mean.”

“Hm?” Bilbo said, then glanced around as though surprised. “Oh, no. Not really. I tried the cello when I was younger. My mother played violin. She’d always play at these parties. Sometimes my dad would join in, he did piano, too.” As he spoke, Thorin heard melancholy slip into his tone and lace his words.

Thorin squeezed Bilbo’s hand and recommended they go for that walk he had suggested earlier. Bilbo accepted, and within a few minutes they were wrapped up in coats and scarves again. They stepped out into the cold and Bilbo linked their fingers and tucked himself close to Thorin.

A light snow fell, and all around them was silent but for the sounds of various parties occurring in several of the houses. The driveway was packed with cars, and Bilbo led Thorin around and away from them, down the street towards where it bent around a corner.

Inside houses Christmas trees, TV screens, and fireplaces were lit, their light spilling onto the front lawn. He and Bilbo walked in silence. Thorin would look through windows as they passed, mostly judging the aesthetics of the Christmas trees or the shows that families were watching. Bilbo seemed to appreciate the silence, or at least didn’t mind it, as it remained unbroken for some time.

As they rounded the corner to the next street over, Bilbo exclaimed and bent over. “Thorin! Look what I found!”

What he found was a handful of snow that he promptly flung right in Thorin’s face. “Motherfucker!” Thorin shouted, scooping up snow and grabbing Bilbo to scrub it into his hair.

That began a brief snowball fight that ended only when Thorin got a little overeager and tackled Bilbo into the snow on someone’s lawn. Fortunately, they were both unhurt. Laughing breathlessly, Bilbo extricated himself to lay beside Thorin. “You can almost see the moon,” he said, groping for Thorin’s hand. Thorin stared up at the grey clouds through the falling snow and saw the faint outline of light filtering through the clouds.

“Huh,” said Thorin. “You can. Sucks there are no stars.”

“Nah, it’d be too gay.”

“I didn’t know we could get gayer,” Thorin said. Bilbo chuckled but did little else, and for a time they sat and listened to the sound of the snow settling. The cold seeped in through their coats and jeans and still they lay side by side. “Hey, Bilbo?”

“Yeah?”

“Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas, Thorin,” Bilbo said, pecking Thorin’s cheek.

Five minutes later the police arrived to remind them that they were on private property.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> they did the diddle. Tomorrow I'll post a bonus chapter of the smut that I wrote then got too scared to post. If you're into that kind of stuff.


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